Fragile
by memorysdaughter
Summary: For all those born beneath an angry star / Lest we forget how fragile we all are. An escapee from a black ops research facility may hold the key to its downfall and the location of its leader, but she has more secrets, and not all of them are good.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This story is set post-01x16 and, so far, ignores the rest of Season 1.

I love reviews and messages and I try to reply to all of them! Enjoy!

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><p><span>Fragile<span>

Her head was spinning and it was getting harder to breathe. Still, she crouched in the corner of the lab, holding the strange gun she'd found on the table. When they found her, she was going to have to fight back. It was the only way.

Her hands shaking, she lifted the gun and aimed it at the door. She wasn't quite sure what she was doing; she'd never held a gun in real life, never pulled a trigger, never shot anyone or anything. There were plenty of guns on the guards at the lab, but since those guards paid as much attention to her as most mortals gave to clumps of dirt on the bottoms of their shoes, their guns had never been a possibility for escape.

The gun bobbed. She felt the next breath whistle in through the tube in her neck, and saw, for the first time, the blood seeping through the dirty gauze covering her fingers.

_One chance. You have one chance._

The doors to the lab slid open and she raised the gun, aimed at the lab-coat-clad woman in the doorway, and fired.

Her shaking hands jerked the trigger and the gun emitted a faint pulse of blue light before clattering to the ground.

Tears welled up in her eyes. _Damn it, I can't do __anything__._

The scientist in the doorway was holding her hands up. "I'm not here to hurt you," she said. Her accent was British, her voice soft. "I don't have any weapons. I want to help you."

_That's how it always starts_.

"We've taken you away from the Institute," the Brit went on. "You're safe here."

_I'm not safe anywhere. They're not going to stop until they find me._

Tears spilled from her eyes and she reached up with one shaking hand to press them against her dirty gauze fingertips.

"My name is Jemma," the scientist said softly, taking another step towards her. "My friend Skye is behind me, here, in the doorway."

She looked up and saw another young woman standing behind the first. Neither was pointing a gun at her, which was progress.

"I can hear it's getting hard for you to breathe," Jemma said, and she was right, the little panicky gasps she could yank in through her trach tube were barely registering in her oxygen-starved body. "If I can come closer, I could give you some oxygen."

_And what else? What else will you give me? Drug me into stupor just like the last "scientists." Keep me here until I tell you all my secrets and then you'll throw me away like the garbage I am._

For the first time, the second young woman spoke. "I've seen your records," she said, somewhat bluntly. "I know what they were doing to you."

_You can't even imagine._

"It's not right," she went on. "In fact, what they did to you is heinous. We won't let them get away with it."

_You don't have a choice. They do what they want and they never, __ever__ pay the price._

The room tilted in front of her and she reached out for something to steady her aching body. In the past hour she'd exerted herself more than she had in years, and it was starting to catch up with her. Her knees went watery, and she grabbed the closest thing to her, whipping it in the general direction of the two women in the doorway.

Whatever it was hit the ground with a _clank_ and she swayed on the spot, completely out of options. _All I want_, she pleaded silently, her chest heaving with unshed sobs, _is to go home._

She saw the Brit dart in to catch her as she fell, and she opened her mouth, as though she could scream out her last few words. Sometimes she forgot that she was literally voiceless, her voice-box being one of those "intriguing curiosities" that had fallen victim to the Scientist's scalpel many long years ago. _ But home doesn't exist anymore… and even if it did, they wouldn't want me back. Not now. They know what I am now…_

She hit the floor and pain blossomed up her tailbone. She knew that once they scanned her, once they figured out the true extent of the damage, she'd be euthanized, given medicine to keep her "comfortable" until the effort of breathing got to be too much. It was her literal last stand, and she was sitting on the metal floor of a plane, using her eyes to beg for her life.

_Please._

"Ward!" the Brit called. "Ward, I need your help!"

The giant of a man she'd seen in the basement laboratory hulked into view, and she tensed her muscles. He'd seemed dismissive of her when he'd seen her, and she didn't have the greatest track record with gigantic, angry-looking men. But this one just scooped her up as though she weighed nothing, and set her on the procedure table in the middle of the lab.

"I'm going to put you on a respirator," the Brit said, calmly snapping on a pair of gloves. "It will give you some support while I assess your condition."

She tensed again, pain ricocheting around her body, and she tried to sit up, tried to run.

The other woman was in front of her in a split second. "It's okay," she said. "Simmons is the best."

And just like that, like she wasn't just some piece of human garbage they'd found in a basement laboratory, the second woman sat down next to her and took her hand. "I'm Skye," she said, "and I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

She flicked her gaze to the Brit, Simmons, who was drawing medicines into hypodermic needles.

"And you _will_ wake up," Skye went on firmly. "I promise."

She felt a needle slide into a vein, and her head got too heavy for her to hold up. The lab swam in front of her again, and she found herself making the conscious decision not to fight.

As though it had been waiting for her permission, her body seemed to agree, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>"Let's start at the beginning," Coulson said. His team was holding their impromptu council meeting in the med bay, because Skye refused to leave their newest passenger alone for even a moment.<p>

"Okay," May said. "We went into the lab expecting to discover the source of the RED serum being used by the Institute in their newest endeavor, the Clarion Project. In addition, we hoped to figure out where their leadership ended up following our raid on the compound at Lisbon."

"We recovered eight vials of the serum," Fitz continued. "Any one of them should be enough for me and Simmons to synthesize a chemical break-down."

"Good," Coulson said.

"In turn, that might give us their location," Simmons put in. "If one or some of the ingredients can only be found or manufactured in a specific place, it might tell us where the Institute's leaders are now, or where they might go."

Coulson nodded.

"It was when we entered the basement laboratory, said to be the domain of the Institute's leader, known only by his code name, the Scientist, that we discovered our… passenger," Ward said. "She was tucked away in a locked cell in the back of the laboratory."

"When we first saw her, we thought she was dead," Skye said. "I mean, she wasn't moving…"

"We figured out how to unlock the cell," Ward went on, "and Skye went to get Simmons while I assessed the situation. It was then the girl woke up."

"She threw things at Ward," Skye said. "He ducked most of them."

"When I tried to assess her condition, she bit me and ran," Simmons said. "Skye and I managed to follow her out of the laboratory and onto the Bus."

"… where she tried to fire the Night-Night Gun at us and failed," Skye said. "Then she passed out."

"She tried to fight us, sir," Simmons said to Coulson. "In her state… it was remarkable, the fight she put up."

Coulson looked through the window of the med bay, thinking of a time not so long ago when he'd sat by Skye's bedside, waiting for her to wake up. Now a tinier, far-too-pale girl lay there, barely moving under the frame of tubes and wires Simmons had strung around her like too many Christmas decorations on an overstuffed tree. "What's wrong with her?" he asked, his voice breaking.

"Where should I start?" Simmons started flipping through the chart she held. "She's malnourished, she's oxygen-starved, she's been pumped full of sedatives, and she's been beaten. Often."

Coulson shook his head.

"Sir, that's not all," Simmons said. "We discovered the source of the RED serum."

Coulson jerked back towards his team. Simmons looked saddened. "She's the source, sir."

"That's not possible."

"They've been running tests on her," Simmons said. "For _years_. Skye managed to get some of their research, but until I've had a chance to look it over, all I know is that she was a guinea pig for some very unsavory experiments."

"Is that why she's wrapped up like a mummy?" May asked bluntly.

"The skin deterioration is a side effect of the testing," Simmons said. "She's covered in wounds that are more like third-degree burns. I managed to drain some of the infection and treat the wounds before I wrapped her back up. Obviously her handlers at the Institute were only interested in keeping her from bleeding all over their experiments – hence the shoddy wrapping."

"She's the source of the serum," Coulson said, hardly daring to believe the words.

Simmons nodded.

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I, sir, but Fitz and I will go through all of the records we retrieved until we can figure out who she is, where she came from, and what's been done to her," Simmons said.

"Good. Go," Coulson said, and the two scientists scurried away.

"If the Institute discovers we've stolen their only link to the RED serum, we're going to be knocked out of the sky," May said. "The Clarion Project created upgrades for the Institute's previous models of super-soldier – impenetrable skin, faster reflexes, vastly upgraded capabilities overall. If this girl was the reason those upgrades were developed, her value on the black market just became astronomical."

"But the lab was abandoned," Ward said. "If the Institute jumped ship, why would they leave her behind?"

"Because they're done with her," Coulson said. "She's served her purpose."

He turned to the med bay again. "But not to us."

"Sir?" May asked.

"To us… she's the key we've been looking for," Coulson said. "I'd wager that she holds the answers to almost every unanswered question we have about the Institute and their protocols. We protect her at all costs."

May nodded, and left, heading towards the cockpit.

"And because she's a _person_," Skye put in. "Even if she doesn't have any answers, we protect her because she's defenseless."

"Can't afford to think like that," Ward said.

"Why not?" Skye demanded. "She's helpless. Her skin's coming off her in sheets, she's got a tube punched into her throat, and she was left for dead…"

"Maybe she wasn't," Ward cut in. "Maybe she was left there for us to find. What if she's a sleeper agent, able to be triggered remotely by the Institute whenever they choose? She's an unknown, and an unknown is a danger."

He looked like he wanted to say more, but shook his head and strode away.

"We protect her," Coulson said, "but in no way do we drop our guard. She's been on the inside at the Institute, there's no telling what she knows that could destroy us and SHIELD completely."

"You're wrong," Skye said. "She's not a weapon. She's a victim."

"Until we can confirm that, we need to be wary," Coulson replied.

He turned, leaving Skye in front of the med bay, then sighed. "Why do I have the feeling that as soon as I leave, you're going to go in there and sit with her?"

"You're a smart man, AC," Skye said.

"Just… be careful, Skye."

"Sure," Skye said. "I'll be on my guard around the heavily sedated child in there. And I'll look out for teddy bears and unicorns too…"

"Don't joke about unicorns," Coulson said. "They'd impale you just as soon as look at you."

Skye rolled her eyes.

"But for what it's worth… she needs someone on her side," Coulson said. "If it has to be one of us, it's in her best interest that it's _you_."

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><p>She opened her eyes. The light in the med bay was dim, and the back-lights from the monitors and medical equipment was casting most of the room's illumination. She could feel IV lines slid into her veins, feel the comfortable pressure of a respirator hooked up to her trach tube, doing the breathing for her, feel the glorious weight of new bandages over her raw skin. She was lying on a comfortable bed, with clean clothes pulled over her, with a blanket snuggled up around her. She was floating somewhere between awareness and pain, and for the first time in a long time, it was more awareness than pain.<p>

A noise beside her made her jump, just slightly, and she turned her head. The woman from earlier was sitting on a stool next to the bed, a laptop balanced on her lap, and she had obviously just woken herself up from a catnap and was now trying to grab everything without falling out of her chair.

"Um, hi. Sorry if I woke you."

She shook her head, looking at the woman – _Skye_ – with what she hoped was a kind expression.

"Do you need anything? I can… get Simmons."

She shook her head again.

"You know, you can talk to us," Skye said. "I don't know if we told you, but we're the good guys."

She brought one hand up from the bed and pointed to her voice-box, then shook her head.

"Because of the tube?"

She shook her head again.

"Because of the…" and here Skye paused. "… experiments?"

She nodded.

"Oh," Skye said, and something changed in her face. "Well, let's fix that."

_It's not really something you can… fix…_

Skye set her laptop on the end of the bed and hopped to her feet. She went out into the hallway, rummaged around for a few minutes, and came back with a whiteboard and a marker. "We bought this to plan meals," she said, "but Simmons and Ward got into a fight over how many nights a week it was acceptable to eat pizza, and then… then it just stopped."

Skye handed the whiteboard to the girl on the bed. "Here… use this as your voice until I can figure out something more… high-tech."

She picked up the marker and scrawled _Where are we?_

"On a plane," Skye replied, hopping back up onto her chair. "We call it the Bus for some reason."

_Where are we going?_

"At the moment? We don't know. But we're going to take down the people who did this to you." Skye watched the girl's eyes. "But let's not talk about that right now. Tell me something about yourself."

_Like what?_

"Like… what's your name, how old you are… how many nights a week you think it's acceptable to eat pizza," Skye said.

The girl thought about this. _Katheryn, but as far back as I can remember I've been called "Kat." I think I'm almost eighteen. And I don't think I've ever eaten pizza._

Skye's eyes followed the marker, looking up at the girl. "Never had pizza?"

Kat shook her head.

"We'll work on that," Skye said.

Kat looked sad.

"What?"

_I know you think you're going to take down the Scientist and the Institute goons, but… you can't._

"Why not?"

Kat's eyes filled with tears. _They're too big. There's too many of them. And they're using things you have no hope of fighting._

Skye put her laptop back on the bed and got into bed next to Kat, holding the girl close to her. Kat sobbed. _You should have left me there. They're going to be mad when they find out you took me_, she scrawled. _They need me._

Skye thought back to Coulson's words: "_She's served her purpose."_ She looked down at the frightened girl in the bed next to her. "They don't need you as much as we do," Skye said firmly. "We're going to find them, we're going to take them down, and you're going to help us."

_I can't help anyone_, Kat wrote. _They made sure of that. I'm a perpetual child in a burn victim's body whose organs and fluids have been used to perpetuate an army of cannibalistic super-soldiers and _–

Skye put her hand over Kat's. "Slow down," she said. "Maybe you won't think of this as helping, but we're all helpful in different ways. Can you draw a map of the Institute?"

Kat furrowed her brow. _Why?_

"It might help us to know where the most important places in the building are. You have information no one else has, and we need every piece of ammunition we can get."

_I can draw you a map_, Kat wrote. _If I had some paper._

"I can get you something better," Skye said with a smile, and she wriggled off the bed.

Kat tapped her hand against the bed rail, and Skye turned back to look at her. "Yeah?"

_If I help you… and you take them down…_ She hesitated.

"_When_ we take them down?" Skye corrected.

_Promise me something._

"If it's in my power, sure."

_Make them suffer._

Skye smiled. "I think we can make sure of that."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Enjoy!

And if there's anything you'd like to see in the next chapters, please let me know and I'll do my best to work it in.

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><p>When she returned with her tablet, Simmons and Fitz were in the med bay. Fitz was holding a computer and Simmons was running a handheld scanner over Kat's still form. As she moved the scanner, 3-D images of the girl's insides popped up, blinking and turning in accordance with Fitz's typing and tapping.<p>

Kat slid her gaze towards Skye.

"Blink twice if you want them to stop," Skye said, setting her tablet on top of the respirator. "Blink once if you're okay with this."

Kat blinked once.

"Okay," Skye said. "What are you doing?" she asked Simmons.

"Checking her system for any abnormalities and…" Simmons stopped talking.

"What?" Skye asked.

"Oh," Simmons said faintly.

In the corner, the respirator started beeping furiously. Skye flicked her eyes over to the screen, watching as Kat's heart rate rose dramatically.

"Stop," Skye said to Simmons.

"No, can't stop now," the biochemist said faintly.

Kat clenched her fists and pointed her feet, nearly raising herself off the bed. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, like a fish on dry land.

"Jemma,_ stop_," Skye said, a little louder. "She's upset."

"Almost done," Simmons said.

This seemed to panic Kat even further. Skye hurried over with the whiteboard and the marker, and Kat unevenly scrawled, _Tell her I'm sorry._

"What?" Skye was confused.

Kat pointed to the words she'd written.

"She says… to tell you she's sorry," Skye said hesitantly, looking up at Simmons.

Simmons stopped waving the scanner over Kat's feet and turned her gaze to the crying girl on the bed. "Oh, sweetheart," the Brit murmured. "No, please don't apologize."

Kat tapped the board again.

"Darling…" Simmons said, putting the scanner on the bed. She took Kat's head in her hands and kissed the girl on the forehead. "_I'm_ sorry. Sorry for what they've done to you."

In his corner, Fitz nodded, as though adding his support. Wordlessly, he stepped forward to show Skye the screen of his computer, which was displaying the results of Simmons' scan. Every part of Kat's body was different in some way – bones that had broken and then healed, twisted and mal-rotated bones and ligaments, extreme muscle atrophy and damage, and here and there evidence of experimentation: small appliances, implants, and things that were definitely _not_ bones, ligaments, muscles, or veins but which were standing in for those important parts.

"Every part of her has been changed," Simmons said softly to Fitz and Skye, stepping away from Kat. "You can't see it on the screen here, but the majority of her skin is marred with thousands of micro-dermal needle punctures. We wondered how the Clarion Project soldiers had bulletproof skin – now we know. Whatever they did, they tested it on her, over and over, until they changed the collagen production facility of her skin, leaving it basically as useless as wet tissue paper."

Skye looked over at the girl on the bed, who was clinging desperately to the bright orange whiteboard marker. On each breath from the respirator Kat seemed to wince, and finally a rattling wheeze escaped from her mouth.

Simmons jerked back around. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry," she said. "Let me give you some more pain medication."

Quickly she injected something into one of the IV lines running out from beneath the bandages on Kat's arms. The girl looked up at Simmons, seemingly confused, and then her eyes slid shut and she went limp on the bed.

"We need to tell Coulson about this," Simmons said, tapping Fitz's computer. "Now."

"Is it bad?" Skye asked. "I mean, I knew it wasn't going to be good, but do we really have anything to tell Coulson?"

One of the machines in the corner beeped, and Simmons moved towards it, checking the readouts from the blood tests she'd started earlier. The information contained there must have been distinctly unpleasant, because Simmons gave Skye an apologetic look. "We thought it was going to be bad," she said softly, "but it's much, much worse."

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><p>The team met around the holotable in the main cabin. Skye stood back from the group, hugging her arms to her as though she was cold. For some reason she couldn't shake the eerie feeling that had come over her in the last few minutes. Her stomach sloshed with nausea, but she wasn't sure where it had come from.<p>

Coulson looked from FitzSimmons to Skye, his brow furrowed. Both scientists looked apologetic, as though they had run over someone's cat, and Skye looked as though she would be ill at any moment. "What's going on?" he asked.

Simmons spoke first. "I finished the full-body scan," she said, and with a few practiced movements, pulled up the scan she'd done of Kat's body. "And the blood test results are in."

The Brit swallowed as she stepped forward. "Everything they did to increase the abilities of the Clarion Project soldiers… they tested on her first. The bulletproof skin obviously required thousands of tests, which left her skin unable to produce collagen. The bandages are basically holding her skin to her body, leaving her wide open for infection. She's covered in bruises and blisters and there are several prominent lacerations around her wrists and ankles."

"Someone tied her up," May said.

Simmons nodded. "Chained, most likely, judging from the patterns of the abrasions. She has some very strong sedatives in her bloodstream," she went on. "Much higher doses than should be required for someone of her stature and body weight. In addition, she's showing traces of withdrawal from psychoactive substances – dry lips and mouth, shaking hands, inability to tolerate light, and anxiety. Based on her blood tests, I would wager that she was sedated unless they were experimenting on her, and then her normal abilities were augmented by drugs to heighten her senses, to make things brighter, louder, bigger, and stronger."

"Can we use any of this to track the Clarion Project?" Coulson asked.

"Possibly," Simmons said. "One of the psychoactive substances in her bloodstream is very unique. I'm synthesizing a chemical breakdown of it now, and once we have that, it's very possible that it could lead us to the Clarion Project's next hideaway."

She paused and looked over at Fitz.

"What is it?" Coulson asked.

"Sir, I'm not sure how she's still alive," Simmons said quietly. "She's already running a fever, and suffering withdrawal, most likely because I wasn't able to perfectly match the combination of drugs they were giving her. It's not going to get better and it's most definitely going to get worse. In addition, her skin is peeling off her faster than I can bandage, she's fighting the respirator, and I can't figure out how they were getting nutrients to her – her veins are all blown and her mouth is as raw as the rest of her skin. There's no doubt in my mind that whoever worked in that lab left her there to die."

Skye hugged her arms tighter around her body.

"And there's one more thing," Simmons said, and she handed a printout to Coulson.

Their head agent read it, May silently scanning it from over his shoulder. At last Coulson looked up, ashen. "She's an 0-8-4?"

Simmons and Fitz both nodded.

"Whoever she is, they used her as a guinea pig because they knew she was different. They knew she was special," Fitz said. "The amount of damage we're seeing – it should have killed her. It _would_ have killed anyone without gifts… _years_ ago."

"Do we have any intel on who she is and where she came from?" Coulson asked.

"She says her name is Kat," Simmons said. "Katheryn. And she told Skye she's eighteen."

"But judging from her bones, she's no more than fifteen," Fitz put in. "There's a lot of damage, so it's possible we're off by a year or two, but she's young."

"She needs to be seen by specialists," Simmons said. "As soon as possible."

Coulson looked at May and Ward, then back to FitzSimmons. "If the three of us go after the Clarion Project, we could leave the three of you at a SHIELD medical facility. They'd be able to figure out how to help her."

"If there's anything they can do," Simmons said.

Coulson nodded.

"Sir, one more thing," Simmons said. "Her brain."

"What about it?"

Simmons brought up a closer view of Kat's skull, and pushed through into the brain. For a few moments Coulson stared at the image before him. "Her amygdala," he said at last.

Simmons nodded. "They extracted it. And in its place, some sort of implant."

"What does that mean?" Ward asked.

"All of her senses are heightened, especially her fear. It's why her heart rate is so high and her blood pressure and oxygen saturations are in the toilet," Simmons said. "She could literally be scared to death. The sooner we get her to a medical facility, the better… though God only knows what they'll be able to do for her."

"She may not survive," May said, picking up on the unspoken subtext.

"It's very possible," Simmons said softly.

At last the nausea rising in Skye's stomach got the better of her and she bolted for the trash can. For several long moments she heaved and retched, throwing up everything she'd eaten that day.

When at last she was empty, she rocked back on her heels, tears in her eyes.

Simmons was next to her, her hand on Skye's back, her other hand holding back the hacker's hair. "I know," the Brit whispered.

Skye shook her head. Simmons didn't know – none of them knew, except for Coulson. She looked up at the head agent. "Tell them," she rasped out, her throat sore.

Skye shoved herself to her feet, pushed herself away from Simmons, and walked away from the group, heading back down to the med-bay, away from Coulson's solemn voice, away from the words she knew he would now be saying, telling the rest of the crew that whatever security they thought they'd had was gone – they were host to not one but two 0-8-4's, two unknowns who could, at any moment, bring untold amounts of badness down on the team, or blow the plane apart, and at the very least threaten the very survival of everyone on-board.

_We're risks_, she thought bitterly. _Wouldn't surprise me if they just lower the cargo bay ramp and do away with us both._

* * *

><p>Her self-pity disappeared almost the second she walked into the med bay. Kat was gone from the bed, and for a moment Skye's heart stopped beating. Then she remembered that the girl was hooked up to intravenous medications and fluids, as well as a respirator – it was no problem to locate her simply by following the tubes and wires down to the floor and under the bed.<p>

"Kat?" Skye asked, bending down.

She heard a sharp intake of breath and there was a short scuttling noise as the girl pressed farther back under the bed.

"Sorry," Skye said quickly. "I just… are you all right?"

It was a stupid question, and Skye knew it. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "Can I… help you?"

Kat was pulled up tight into a ball, her knees drawn up to her chest, head down on her knees. Her eyes were tired and Skye could hear the wheeze around the respirator tube.

Skye sat down a safe distance from Kat, watching the girl. "I was on that machine once," Skye said at last. "It sucked."

Kat watched her.

"It took away the work of breathing, but every time it gave me a breath, I felt like I was on fire," Skye went on.

Tears were forming in Kat's eyes.

"… but I found that if I relaxed," Skye said, "sometimes I could sleep. I could close my eyes and pretend the respirator was the ocean. And I'd let that take me away."

Kat brought one of her gauze-wrapped hands up to her face and brushed away the tears. Then she mouthed something to Skye, two short words.

"One more time, sweetie."

Kat moved her mouth again, and this time Skye caught her words: _So. Tired._

"I know," Skye said. "We're going to get you some help, okay? You're going to be okay."

Whether she was fifteen or eighteen or somewhere in between, Kat was no fool, and she gave Skye a wry smile. The girl moved her fingers up to the respirator tube and pushed in on the tube jutting out from her neck. It was just enough for pressure her to get two words out. "Can't. Fix," she said to Skye.

And then two more words: "Too. Broken."

And then she started shaking and sobbing, panicked hands flailing against her forehead as though she was trying to beat something out of her head.

Skye immediately slipped under the bed next to Kat and picked the girl up, horrified by how little she weighed. "Shh, sweetie," Skye whispered. "Shh, I know."

The tubes and wires overlapping their arms and legs, Skye rocked Kat back and forth. The sounds of the respirator rose up around them, wrapping them as though in a cocoon, in-and-out an ocean, in-and-out, in-and-out, until Kat's eyes closed and she leaned into Skye, as though without the older girl's support she would melt through the floor and no longer exist.

Skye knew the feeling.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Thanks to all my readers and reviewers! Enjoy!

* * *

><p>For a long time, Kat slept, cradled in Skye's arms. Skye listened to the ocean whir of the respirator and closed her eyes every now and then, feeling more exhausted and numb as time went on.<p>

At last she realized Simmons was kneeling next to the bed, looking in at the two of them. "How is she?" the scientist asked.

"Tired," Skye said. She shifted Kat's weight. "And hot."

"Her fever's spiking," Simmons said. "I can try to bring it down with medication, but I fear she's too far gone for that."

"Don't ever say that," Skye snapped, suddenly irritated. "She's not too far gone for anything. We're going to save her."

"Oh, Skye," Simmons said softly. "I can see how much you care for her. I didn't mean that she was too far gone to save. I meant that her fever most likely won't respond to medication, and we might need to try something more drastic. A cooling blanket, perhaps."

She sat back on her heels. "Her oxygen levels are going down again," she told Skye. "I need to get the backup tank in here to give her some more support until we can get her to a hospital."

But for several long moments, Simmons didn't move. She simply looked at Skye, and Skye looked back.

Finally the long stare grated on Skye. "What?"

"I just… you know, you could have told me and Fitz," Simmons replied. "We wouldn't have… judged you. Thought any less of you. We love you for who you are, and… and we've seen you at what was arguably your worst. And your best."

Skye bit her lip. "You saved my life, Jemma," she said after a beat. "You're the closest thing I have to family. And yet…"

She shook her head, unable to express the hesitation that had kept her from revealing her biggest secret.

"Look at Kat," she said, taking another tack. "Whoever did this to her… they used her _because_ she was gifted. _Because_ she was different."

"Fitz and I would never do anything like that to you!" Simmons protested hotly. "And we'd obviously try to stop anyone who would!"

"I know," Skye said. "I know that. But admit it – it would have changed how you looked at me. It _did_ change it. I can see it now."

Simmons looked away from Skye.

"See, that's it," Skye said. "You're unsure of how to act. And I understand that."

"It's not on purpose," Simmons said softly. "I just…"

Whatever she would have said was suddenly lost in the blaring of alarms. In Skye's arms, Kat arched her back, coughing violently.

"Get her out here!" Simmons barked, and Skye slid out from under the bed, the tiny girl still in her arms.

Simmons was on her feet in a split second, grabbing medical equipment. Skye looked down at Kat, the girl still coughing. Bright red blood was on Kat's lips, and more of it poured from the bandages surrounding the breathing tube in her neck.

"Suction!" Simmons ordered, handing Skye a thin tube. "In her trach!"

Somehow Skye yanked off the tubes connecting Kat to the respirator, and somehow she got the suction tube down into the girl's plastic airway. The tube in her hand went bright red as she slurped what seemed like gallons of blood from the trach tube. Simmons hurtled about the room like a pinball, finding supplies and changing the readouts on machines.

Her hands full of medical supplies, Simmons knelt next to Skye, mopping blood from Kat's mouth. Skye could hear the Brit whispering, almost painfully: "_Hang on, please… please, we're so close… please…"_

One of the machines started wailing.

"_Simmons!"_ Skye screamed. "_Do_ something!"

Simmons grabbed the suction tube from Skye and thrust something that looked like a plastic football with a mask on the end into the hacker's hands. "We're going to try something," Simmons said, sounding completely unsure of herself. "I'm going to block the tube and…"

"You're going to kill her!"

"… and you're going to give her a breath through her mouth and nose," Simmons went on. "We can bag her until we get to the SHIELD hospital."

"And if you're wrong…?"

Simmons suctioned more blood from the trach tube. "Then at least we got her out of that hell of a lab," she said softly.

Skye shook her head, hard, to get the tears to stop flowing.

"_Now_," Simmons ordered firmly.

With one gloved finger she plugged the trach tube. Kat arched towards the pressure. Somehow Skye managed to get the mask over the girl's mouth and nose and shoved a breath into her with the football-shaped bag.

Skye didn't realize it on the first few breaths, because her eyes were locked on Kat's pale face under the mask, but the breaths went in. The machines surrounding the bed went silent one by one, and Skye looked over at Simmons.

Simmons nodded. "She's… the air's getting to her," she whispered.

Every muscle in Skye's body ached and she suddenly felt the need to throw up again. Her arms shook and the room seemed too bright and too loud around her.

"Skye," Simmons said gently but firmly, "we have to keep going. She needs to keep breathing until the SHIELD doctors can help her."

And because Kat couldn't breathe, Simmons and Skye became her breath. Skye focused on the plastic bag in her hands, giving a breath when Simmons said to. If she thought about anything else the room started to spin and her stomach went wobbly, and that was precious time and energy she could not afford.

Eventually the rest of their crew realized something had gone wrong. May and Coulson appeared first. Coulson clearly had issues on his mind he wanted to discuss with Simmons, and the sight of the three on the floor, surrounded by blood-soaked gauze and other medical detritus, stopped him dead in his tracks. May took one look over Coulson's shoulder and pushed past their fearless leader, kneeling on the floor next to Skye.

"Let me," May said softly, and she took the mask and bag from Skye's shaking hands.

Skye found that it was suddenly very difficult to move, but somehow she relinquished control of the bag to the older woman. Her hands were cramped into the curved position she'd used to hang onto the bag, and she suddenly felt as though she was missing a vital part of herself.

The room swam and black spots dotted her vision. A pair of strong hands clamped down on her shoulders, bringing her back to earth, and Skye opened her eyes to see Coulson crouching before her.

"You with me?" he asked, and Skye had barely a moment to shake her head _no_.

Coulson, to his credit, had seen something in her face, and he turned quickly to one side, grabbed the closest trash bin, and held it up in front of Skye. She retched and heaved, grateful there was nothing in her stomach, and then sat back on her heels.

"We're going to save her," Coulson said, keeping his hands on her shoulders. "We're nearly there."

"Something's wrong," Skye said. The room was still spinning around her. "Something's _wrong_."

"I know," Coulson said. "Stay with me, okay?"

Skye tried to say something else, but the room's ceiling swept down on her and the black spots grew and darkened her entire visual field.

She caught sight of Coulson's face before it blinked away – he was worried, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out why.

* * *

><p><em>The first time she truly used her difference, she was being held at gunpoint. Her entire family was, but when Kateri thought back on it, she couldn't remember their faces. Couldn't remember anyone but the gunman – a boy from the mainland who had gotten desperate. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but she knew for certain that he was more scared than she was.<em>

_It was funny how the years in the lab had changed her. She had once been fearless, clever, cunning. She loved music and water, loved every bit of her home – and it loved her right back. Everything spoke to her, and she knew every tongue and would reply fluently, fluidly._

_But in the lab, after years of experiments and pain, she was weak. Cowering. Struggled to fit words together, struggled to remember things she'd once known. During the most painful moments, she would imagine the alphabet in her head, bright gold lines constructing each letter in her mind. Then she'd string them into words, each one glowing with the power she could no longer find in her body._

_She would have given anything to remain on the good side of the Scientist, of his doctors, of anyone who controlled her pain relief. She knew she had a high tolerance, but eventually, no matter what, the pain caught up with her. It swept her like a tornado, made her weak in the knees, reduced her to a squalling infant._

_Pain everywhere. It was everything. But no matter how much she hurt, she could hang onto that first memory. The first time she took what she was and used it._

_The boy was a redhead, holding a gun that was much too big for him. She wasn't sure where he'd gotten it from, and that part didn't matter. What mattered was that he had it, and he shouldn't have had it. She knew that much._

_And though her mother was weeping and her sisters were bawling and her father was begging for their lives, Kateri knew she had to stop the redheaded boy with the gun._

_She tilted her head and looked at him. He was babbling demands at her father – money, it was always about money – and he was sweating._

_Kateri went to that place in her head, her secret, perfect place where everything was still and the world around her was golden, like she was sitting in a bubble. Nothing could touch her, and she could control everything. It was a place her mother had told her to stay away from. "Y' scare people, Kateri, when y' look at 'em like that. Not nice fer a young girl t' be lookin' at things she shouldn't see. Keep those eyes closed, Kateri – keep us safe, huh?"_

_But now they weren't safe. Now they were going to be slaughtered mercilessly by some jerk from the mainland with a weapon too big for his teenage hands, all for a pittance._

_So Kateri opened her eyes, the eyes her mother had told her to leave shut, and she looked at the boy. And suddenly, she saw everything about him. She knew. She __knew__._

_Oh so gently, gently, she reached, with her mental fingers (as golden and glowing as the bubble she sat in), and picked the gun up._

_To the boy, it seemed as though gravity had gone haywire, pulling the gun upwards. He couldn't see Kateri's mental fingers – no one could – and he immediately started swearing, grabbing for it, and accusing everyone in the room of taking it from him._

_But now she had it, and she couldn't let him have it back. So she took it with her golden fingers and __pushed__ it together, compacting all of the gun's hateful energy into a small, dense, dark sphere. Then she took the sphere and __pushed__ air into it, until it expanded with her life force, until it was a bubble just like the one in which she sat._

_And then she popped it._

_With his gun gone, the boy looked from face to face, horrified. And then he ran._

_Kateri didn't remember anything after that. She didn't remember anything until two days later, when she woke up, the taste of barley sugar in her mouth. It was the most common "bring-back" for her state, according to the wisest of the wise women in her village, but compared to the modern medicine Kateri would taste later, it was useless. It was a kindness, though, to wake up with something sweet on her tongue, despite the fact it did nothing to ameliorate the fever, the seizures, and the temporary blindness that followed._

_It was something to hold onto, that sweetness. Kateri wondered if that was the reason she could hold onto that memory and that memory alone – the sweetness that broke through every detriment to her gift._

_That memory wasn't sweetness, far from it. But it was all she had in an ocean of pain and suffering, and people tend to cling to the only things they have - Kateri even more so._

_Sometimes it worked._

_Sometimes the pain blotted everything out, and she drowned in it._

_Sometimes she was powerful._

* * *

><p>"Holy <em>shit<em>," Skye bit out as her eyes flew open. She lurched forward and everything in her body hurt.

The words were muffled, and she realized she was wearing an oxygen mask.

She turned her head to the side and found Coulson's worried eyes. "What?"

She reached up for the mask, but he leaned across the space between them and took her fingers in his. "Keep it on," he said.

Skye's head cleared enough to realize that they were no longer in the med pod. Instead, the room around her was clean, sterile, antiseptic in shades of muted blue and gray, and she was propped up in a hospital bed, two IV lines running into the backs of her hands. "Oh, damn."

"What?"

"You were supposed to go after the Clarion Project," Skye said. "And… you're here. Which tells me something happened."

"May and Ward went after the Scientist," Coulson said. "Don't worry about them."

He released her fingers and sat back. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Skye shook her head and instantly regretted it. Pain ricocheted around her skull and she closed her eyes. "I don't… I don't remember."

But then parts of it began to float back. Kat, lying on the floor, bleeding. Simmons coaching her to put breaths into the girl's lungs. May taking over. The sudden dizziness and vomiting. And then…

"You had a seizure," Coulson said, seeing her puzzled face.

"A… seizure?" Skye rubbed her head. "That's… impossible."

"And yet I watched it happen," Coulson said.

Skye opened her eyes. "What aren't you telling me?"

Coulson was quiet.

"Oh, God, Kat," Skye said. "Is she…?"

"She's alive," Coulson said. "They're working on her. But… her prognosis is not good."

"I have to…" Skye pushed back the blanket covering her legs and tried to get out of bed, grabbing the oxygen mask off her face.

Coulson was on his feet before she could get anywhere. "You're staying right here," he said.

Everything in Skye told her to protest, but her body cried out in pain and weakness. She reluctantly acquiesced, and let Coulson put the oxygen mask back over her face.

"I'm more interested in what happened _during_ the seizure," Coulson said.

She gave him a puzzled look.

"You started speaking another language," Coulson said.

"Kat," Skye breathed. "She… no. That's impossible."

Coulson watched her.

"But I… _saw."_

Her head was spinning again.

"What did you see?" Coulson's voice was gentle, probing.

"Kat. As a little girl. On an island somewhere. She's… her name isn't Katheryn. It's Kateri. And she… they were being held at gunpoint. And she _took_ the gun…"

Hesitantly, shakily, Skye told Coulson what she'd seen in the seizure-dream. When she'd finished, he leaned back in his chair. "Holy shit," he said, echoing Skye's words from a few moments before. "An 0-8-4 with those powers, it's…"

"Now we know why the Clarion Project wanted her," Skye said.

"And why every confrontation we've had with them has ended with us running with our tails between our legs," Coulson said. "If they have even _half_ of that ability…"

"But why did she show _me?"_ Skye asked.

"We could speculate on that all night. But you took care of her from the moment we found her," Coulson said. "She trusts you, and I have a feeling that she hasn't trusted a whole lot of people in her life. And maybe, you two being 0-8-4s together… there was some connection. A lot changes in a person when they're bleeding out."

Unconsciously Skye moved her hand to her stomach.

"But she's still alive, Skye," Coulson said. "And now we have time to answer the questions we have about her, and use those answers to stop the Clarion Project and bring down the Scientist. So whatever she showed you… it was worth it whatever it cost her."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed! Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Fitz and Simmons sat in the surgical waiting room. Every now and then, a nurse would appear from the operating suites and give them an update. The updates came every hour or so, except for a very long three hours when they discovered that Kat's blood pressure had tanked and she'd gone into cardiac arrest. When Simmons' own heart had gone back to beating normally, she'd left Fitz in the waiting room eating cheddar cheese popcorn and reading <em>Monkey Owners Monthly<em>, with strict orders to call her if anything else went wrong, and took the short trip down a few floors to see Skye.

Coulson was sitting at Skye's bedside, arms crossed, watching the hacker sleep.

"How is she?" Simmons asked softly, sitting down next to him.

The head agent shifted in his seat and turned to look at her. "She was awake for a little while," he answered, "and demanded that I get her computer. She wanted to look at something in the research we found at the Institute."

"What was it?"

"I don't know," Coulson said. "Whatever it was, it got her so anxious that she started hyperventilating and she threw up. Then she said the room was spinning and she passed out again."

"She didn't have another seizure, did she?"

"No," Coulson said. "Just got woozy, and apparently her blood pressure dropped sharply. They turned up her fluids and told me she should come around in a few minutes here."

He gave Skye's sleeping form a short look, then turned back to Simmons. "And our passenger?"

"Still hanging on," Simmons replied, "though I've no idea how. They've resuscitated her at least once that we know of. So far they've been able to stitch up her major wounds and do some artificial skin grafts over some areas that were completely open. She'll come out of surgery wrapped up again until we can see how her body reacts to the grafts. She's not out of the woods yet by any stretch of the imagination – still spiking a fever and they're working far too hard to keep her breathing. I wonder…"

"Don't wonder," Coulson said softly. "We need her to keep breathing, and the doctors here will do everything in their power to make sure she stays that way."

Simmons raised one eyebrow.

"Skye… well, she _saw_ something," Coulson said. "Turns out Kat's more talented than we thought."

He repeated Skye's description of Kat's abilities, and watched as Simmons' face went from confusion to outright disbelief.

"That's… that's impossible, sir," Simmons said when he had finished.

"Is it, though? We wondered how the Clarion soldiers always seemed to have endless supplies of weapons," Coulson said. "If Kat can make a gun disappear, is it really that much of a stretch of the imagination to think the soldiers could create weapons and ammunition?"

"I suppose not, but…" Simmons still looked doubtful.

There was a gargling gasp from the bed, and Skye jerked awake. "Wha' happened?" she slurred in Coulson's general direction.

"Your blood pressure dropped," Coulson said. "Turns out that makes you a bit unconscious."

"Oh." Skye reached up and tried to get the oxygen mask off.

"Leave it on," Simmons said, getting up and putting her hand over Skye's. "At least until the room stays still for you."

"… is… still spinny," Skye mumbled into the mask, and she let her head drop back against the bed.

"I'm going to take a walk," Coulson said, and he got up. "Be right back," he said to Simmons.

She nodded, and sat down on the edge of Skye's bed. "How do you feel?"

"Sledgehammer… in my head," Skye got out. "An' my mouff… not working right."

"That's all right," Simmons said.

"Kat?"

"She's still in surgery," Simmons answered. "There's… there were a few complications. But she's remarkably resilient."

For a few minutes the girls sat in silence. Then Skye pushed up the oxygen mask and looked over at Simmons. "She's dangerous."

"Kat?" Gently Simmons leaned over and moved the mask back into place.

"Been dangerous," Skye mumbled, leaning against the bed. "Her whole life."

She jerkily pointed to the closed computer on the over-bed table. "In there."

As Simmons reached for the computer, Skye tried again to get the oxygen mask off. "How come… I feel… like this?" she asked.

Simmons carefully replaced the mask over Skye's face and squeezed the other girl's hands in hers. "You had a seizure," she said delicately. "I had a professor once who had them. He said coming around afterwards was like being beaten with a baseball bat. Took him hours, at least, to feel even halfway normal. You're trying to do too much too soon, Skye."

Skye started to protest.

"Keep the oxygen on," Simmons said firmly. "And rest. You'll feel better, I promise."

"Dr. Simmons again," Skye murmured faintly, and she leaned back against the bed, closing her eyes. "Less pokey, but still…"

And she went quiet.

Simmons sat down in Coulson's vacated chair and picked up Skye's laptop. It was a mistake, she knew it, as soon as she caught sight of the title of the first article up on the screen.

_Abandoned Child Found._

Yet once she started reading, she found she couldn't stop.

* * *

><p><em>Abandoned Child Found<em>, the title of the article proclaimed. It was from a nameless newspaper, the newspaper from an island called O'Hoolihan's Folly, the date sixteen years previous. Simmons called up her geography knowledge and couldn't place O'Hoolihan's Folly, though the island's name and the names in the article alone caused her to believe it was one of the many small landmasses making up the British Isles.

_A baby was found in the hollow behind MacDougal's farm early Whitsunday morning. Padraig Ahearn and Cahir O'Keefe were walking the path to Mass when they heard a child crying in the woods. Upon further investigation, they discovered the baby lying in the ditch nearest to the pond. The baby was taken to Dr. Shannon, who reported the infant in fine health. Following the examination, the baby was given to the family O'Dalaigh. A search for her parents on the mainland will take place. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Father Dermot at St. Finian's Church, no. 6 High Street._

The next article was a bit shorter:

_Abandoned Child Named_

_The baby found Whitsunday behind MacDougal's farm has been named and baptized into the Catholic Church. Caitriona Grainne joins the family O'Dalaigh. Her parents are Maureen and Odhran O'Dalaigh. The family has three other daughters, Roisin, Saoirse, and Eilis._

Simmons read through a series of other articles about O'Hoolihan's Folly and Kat's "family." The first few were seeking information on the girl's parentage, though apparently nothing had been discovered. One article was only a few sentences long, informing readers that a search for the girl's biological family had stopped.

It was the fifth or sixth article that thwacked worry into Simmons' stomach, and it had more to do with what the article _didn't_ say.

_All citizens of O'Hoolihan's Folly are reminded of the decision made at meeting Sunday previous. As charged by our mayor, none of us will speak to mainlanders about the events of August 16. Anyone found in violation of this decree will be sent to the mainland. The two mainlanders who observed the events have been dealt with, and all evidence of the events has been destroyed._

It was odd and troubling, and Simmons found the reason – a short video clip with an odd, grainy quality to the picture. Only a few seconds long, and without sound, it showed a girl with fiery red hair, her back to the camera, sitting in a field, seemingly pulling lambs out of nowhere, adding them to the flock surrounding her. The clip ended abruptly with an angry hand being put over the lens.

Simmons watched the clip over and over, trying to make sense of it. The slight frame, the bright hair – the girl was clearly Kat. But it had to be some sort of trick recording. There was just no way someone could _create_ things out of thin air.

Then the information changed. Kat left O'Hoolihan's Folly, apparently not by choice; Simmons found a receipt – a _receipt_ – for her. Someone, most likely the Scientist who had been experimenting on the girl for the majority of her lifetime, had paid the O'Dalaigh family ten thousand dollars.

_Ten thousand dollars_. Simmons felt sick. Someone had _paid_ for Kat's life – _paid_ to take her away from a community that had rallied around her, and for such a pittance. And that family, the ones who had obviously cared for her, had just given her up – for _money._ What lies had they been told?

Had it been enough, Simmons wondered, for them to forget about Kat? For them to feel okay with the torture she had undergone? How did the O'Dalaighs sleep at night?

She started, realizing Coulson was in the doorway. "Sir," she said.

"I brought you a juice," Coulson said. He stepped forward and handed Simmons a bottle of some bright reddish-purple beverage. "Anything interesting?"

"Ten thousand dollars," Simmons said.

Coulson pulled up another chair as Simmons related what she'd read. "So now we know how she got to the Scientist and to the Institute," Coulson said when Simmons had finished. "But how did the Scientist know Kat was even there to begin with?"

"They were looking for her," came Skye's groggy voice from the bed. "Looking for abnormalities in the system."

The hacker sat up, leaving the oxygen mask in place. "The way I did, when I found Mike Peterson."

"They found her… randomly?" Coulson asked.

Skye nodded grimly. "Found her, realized she was different, and then _paid_ for her. Like she was… a pair of shoes or something."

Fitz appeared in the doorway, orange popcorn dust on his face. "They want to see you," he said to Simmons.

"Is she…?"

"Still alive," Fitz said. "Out of surgery. They'll have her in recovery in a few minutes."

He turned to go.

"Wait," Simmons said. "You're the geography whiz – do you know where O'Hoolihan's Folly is?"

"Of course," Fitz said, as though it was common knowledge. "One of the British Isles, inhabited by approximately fifty-seven people. Pleasant weather, if a bit given to gusty rainstorms."

He looked from Simmons to Coulson. "Why?"

"Our mystery passenger has roots," Coulson said.

"Oh."

Simmons stood. "I'll go speak to the surgeon," she said.

"Hey," Skye said. "When can I get up?"

"When the room stops spinning and your oxygen stays above 90," Simmons replied crisply, and she left the room.

Fitz followed her down to the surgical recovery room. "I'll wait for you here," he said, and took a seat just outside the door.

A surgical nurse escorted Simmons to the cubicle where Kat was being held, unconscious and seemingly pinned to the bed by wires and tubes, ringed by monitors and pumps. Simmons took a hesitant step forward and brushed her fingers against Kat's palm.

She wasn't expecting it, but Kat's eyes flickered open and the girl looked at her confusedly.

"Hi," Simmons said. "It's me. Um, Jemma. We met earlier. On the plane."

Kat's eyes seemed to say _go on_.

"You're in a SHIELD medical facility. You had some surgery," Simmons went on, trying to keep her statements simple. "You were bleeding very heavily, and you stopped breathing."

Kat blinked.

Simmons leaned in a little closer. "If you're in pain, blink twice."

Kat blinked once, and then stared at Simmons.

"Okay," Simmons said. She hesitated again, trying not to be caught asking a ridiculous question in front of a surgeon. "Do you remember… showing Skye something? Something of where you came from? Blink twice for yes."

Kat's gaze wavered, and then she blinked twice. There was a question in her eyes when she met Simmons' eyes again.

"She's all right," Simmons said. "Had a seizure, scared the stuffing out of Agent Coulson. But she'll be fine. And so will you."

It was a lie, but Kat seemed to take some comfort in it. Her heart rate slowed and her eyes slid shut again.

The surgeon approached and Simmons straightened up to meet him. "Dr. Simmons."

"Dr. Manning," Simmons replied.

"An interesting case you have here."

"Thank you for doing everything you could," Simmons said. "I know it wasn't easy, and…"

"Where did this girl come from?" Manning asked, cutting her off.

Simmons took a moment to think about her response. She and Coulson hadn't discussed what to tell the SHIELD medical officers, just that Kat was working with their team. "She has an interesting provenance."

"And I'd be interested, if we were buddies trading stories over a pint," Manning said. "Let me ask again – where did this girl come from?"

"You'll have to talk with Agent Coulson," Simmons said.

"Whoever performed those procedures on her needs to be prosecuted," Manning said. "Her body is literally full of 0-8-4 technology, tech that _no one_ should have their hands on. It's the only reason she's still alive."

He didn't sound angry, more frightened. "Who wants this girl alive badly enough to sacrifice that much tech on her? And what were they keeping her alive for?"

"To be honest, sir, if we knew…" Simmons trailed off.

"Every part of her, they changed," Manning said. "Experimented on, took out and replaced. She's as much machine as she is human, and I'm honestly surprised she has human blood running in her veins. Someone put a lot of work into her, and I'm of a mind that that person is going to want her back."

He backed away from Simmons. "You and the rest of Coulson's team picked up someone's prize possession, and they're going to move heaven and earth to get her back."

* * *

><p><em>The first time she had a seizure, she didn't know what it was. She was outside, sitting in the dirt, writing her name with a stick. C-a-i-t –<em>

_And the world __tilted__, as though it was the glass globe filled with tiny whirling bits of glitter that sat on her Gammy's mantel. Tilted so sharply and swiftly that it took her breath away, pushed pain in through her nose, her forehead, her heart; she could feel her arms and legs jerking, but she was somewhere above her body, away from it, watching her grubby little self in the mud flop and spasm._

_The second time it happened, her mother saw it. Called in the wise women, the doctor, even the priest. None could find anything wrong with her, none could give her anything to fix the spells._

_And it was the way she wanted it. She learned to sense when the seizures were coming, learned to get on the ground, learned to close her eyes and think of something else, something smaller or happier, something completely unrelated to what was about to happen. Then she'd let her body take over, step somewhere outside herself, and return moments later, the world irrevocably changed._

_The first time she pulled something out of nothing, it was almost like a seizure. The world changed so wholly that it took her several long blinks to realize that she was still in her own body, still awake._

_It wasn't as though she'd woken up one morning and said, "Today I'm going to bend space and time and all that's known and all that's holy, today I'm going to do something no one's ever seen before and no one will ever see again."_

_She had just been sitting in the pasture outside MacDougal's field, playing with the lambs, when an idea had wandered into her head. She wanted a lamb of her own._

_And it was like she was possessed – she brought one hand up, crackling with energy she didn't feel or hear or see, and __pulled__. From where or when she couldn't say, but the __pull__ in her hands shaped itself and formed, and then there was another little lamb sitting on the grass._

_It nearly killed her; her heart raced and blood surged through her little body and she screamed._

_And then she was gloriously, gloriously alive, blood singing and heart dancing, and she was somebody else._

_And __dia__ bless her, she loved the way it made her feel._

* * *

><p>Translation:<p>

_dia_: God (Gaelic)


End file.
